New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition

“By 2010, African countries, on average, were spending 6.5 percent of their national budgets on agriculture and had achieved a 6.7 percent agricultural growth rate.” – ReSAKSS data was cited by Group of Eight (G8) in its Camp David Accountability Report.

The world is watching: the G8 and African leaders recently launched New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, a partnership between G8 countries, African countries and private sector leaders to halve hunger and lift 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years through investments in agriculture and nutrition. The new African development cooperation commitment outlines the framework to build a better public-private partnership in Africa and the supports for accelerating African nations’ agricultural development progress.

Partner with Private Sector

History tells us that a country’s private sector is always the engine of economic growth and poverty reduction – it produces goods and services, creates jobs, increases the trade and generates tax revenues. For the first time, private sector leaders joined the G8 summit. More than 45 national and multinational firms made the commitments to invest over $3 billion in African agriculture to promote food security in Africa and build public-private partnerships with national governments and regional institutions.

By working together with African partner countries, the African Union, New Partnership for Africa’s Development and Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), G8 will make sure that the New Alliance Cooperation Frameworks align with priority activities within each country’s CAADP national investment plan and include predictable funding commitments, specific policy actions and statements of intent from the private sector, stated in Fact Sheet: G-8 Action on Food Security and Nutrition.

The G8 members, who have long been supporters and advocates for CAADP, will continue propelling CAADP implementation to accelerate the national agricultural investments and agricultural growth in its African partner countries.

Country Fast Sheets: the New Alliance Cooperation Frameworks

Ghana, Tanzania and Ethiopia are the three countries that currently launched the New Alliance Cooperation Frameworks. The number will grow as other African countries participated in the Grow Africa Partnership are expected to join the new alliance soon.

“Over time, the New Alliance will expand to other African countries that have demonstrated an interest and willingness to participate in the process,” the US government stated on its Feed the Future website.